One in four black people in the United States, 9.9 million people, lived in poverty in 2009, the Census Bureau reported today.

When most politicians identify the most pressing issues facing the nation, poverty rarely rolls off the tongue. Courting voters in low-income communities doesn’t often generate hefty campaign contributions or build notoriety among fellow establishmentarians, so self-interest certainly plays a role. But an annual report from the U.S. Census Bureau on income shows that lawmakers at every level of government won’t be able to ignore the problem much longer.

John D. Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress, released the following statement in reaction to the poverty statistics announced by the Census Bureau:

The Census poverty numbers released today show the legacy of failed Bush economic policies and the burden of the Great Recession on American families and children.

Half in Ten, a campaign to cut poverty in half over 10 years, urged Congress today to take immediate action in response to new Census Bureau data for 2009 that show the largest number of people living in poverty since 1959 and that more than one in five U.S. children lived in poverty last year.

Las repercusiones de la Gran Recesión se sentirán en las comunidades de todos los Estados Unidos mucho después de que comiencen a disminuir las cifras del desempleo. Además de los estragos que causa el desempleo en las familias, el desempleo prolongado desgarra la estructura social de comunidades y barrios enteros.

Most children jump for joy when the final bell rings on the last day of school. For them, summer means freedom. It means camp, vacation, and popsicles. But summer also means hunger and stagnation for too many American children.

Most children jump for joy when the final bell rings on the last day of school. For them, summer means freedom. It means camp, vacation, and popsicles. But summer also means hunger and stagnation for too many American children.

I was so worked up about what got axed from the recently-passed House jobs/tax cut extender bill that I passed over two of the surviving provisions that will save and create jobs. One of them should also help mitigate further damage to our fraying safety net.

Robert J. Samuelson’s May 31 op-ed, “Why Obama’s poverty gauge misleads,” was itself misleading in its characterization of the Obama administration’s proposed supplemental poverty measure.

The U.S. is now spending more on food assistance than at any time in its history, sparking a debate over whether the roughly 40 million people now receiving the latest version of food stamps at a cost of $73 billion a year are a symptom of a weak economy or are part of a long-term expansion in welfare and related programs.